Variant: What It Takes to Get AI-Generated Design Right

Code can be generated faster than ever. But getting that code to actually look good is a different problem entirely.

In this episode of High Bit, Initialized managing partner Brett Gibson sits down with Daniel Bulhosa Solórzano, cofounder and CTO of Variant, about what it takes to build AI that gets design right, not just code that runs.

Daniel started thinking about this problem in 2017 at Weebly, when the models weren't close to ready. After a stint in self-driving, he came back to it. Variant generates UI that's visually designed, not just technically correct, and shows you multiple options at once so you can find what you actually want instead of having to describe it upfront.

Topics include:

- Why AI struggles with visual quality even when the code works

- The difference between precision and recall in design generation

- Why showing people options beats asking them to describe what they want

- Why people will always want to stay in the loop on design

- How the role of designers changes as AI handles more of the execution

(00:00) What design AI could eventually do

(00:44) What Variant builds

(01:25) How Daniel got here: Weebly, self-driving, and an unsolved problem

(03:20) Why visual code generation is hard

(04:10) Precision vs. recall and why design is different

(06:55) What good design actually means

(09:04) Landing page vs. dashboard: how context shapes design choices

(11:31) What can be described vs. what has to be labeled

(13:10) Casting a wide net for what good design looks like

(15:25) Building the product around an imperfect model

(17:04) Why people react to designs faster than they can describe them

(19:29) Why people won't give up design to AI

(23:40) What AI does to the design learning curve

(25:06) Designers as design managers for agents

(37:42) The 50%/80% horizon and what it means for engineering teams

Follow Daniel and Variant:

Daniel Bulhosa Solórzano

X: https://x.com/bulhosa

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbulhosa/

Variant

Website: https://variant.com/

X: https://x.com/variantui

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/variantui/posts/?feedView=all

High Bit

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